A few years back I took $100 out of one bank and deposited it at another. The second bank only credited me $80, and sent me a letter informing me that one of the bills was counterfeit. I called the bank and explained that while I'm sure they were right, I'd been handed the bill by another bank and I had no chance of detecting the counterfeit bill so it wasn't fair to punish me. They, of course, wouldn't agree with that but they *did* give me a $20 counter credit because they wanted to keep me as a customer.

A couple decades ago when all paper money was as counterfeitable as the $1 bill remains, I worked at a fast food joint and would encounter counterfeit money on a fairly regular basis. The thing is, it was obvious to me that the poor schmo trying to buy a burger hadn't made the bill, and was just handing me a stack of money he'd been handed by somebody else. Who knows where the counterfeiter was? So unless I thought the customer was actually trying to swindle I'd just take the money and let the banks sort it out later.

Similar thing here: the purchasers are unwittingly caught in the crosshairs. Nothing good comes of attacking the person who's already been unknowingly swindled.

The problem is, this death was a result of systemic problems between the police and society at large, specifically the police thinking - correctly, it appears - that they're above the law.

The lack of prosecution in this case is NOT because the police are "above the law". The lack of prosecution in this case is because the law specifically allows the police to use electronic devices in the course of their duties while operating their vehicles. The same way the law allows the police to exceed the speed limit in certain cases, or allows them to park pretty much anywhere, or allows them to pull you over, or allows them to do any number of other things that a normal citizen can't do.

You may argue that it's a bad practice, but keep in mind that one person dying because officers are allowed to use electronic devices while driving doesn't necessarily mean that's bad practice any more than officers sometimes causing accidents because they can speed or run red lights in the course of their duties means those are overall bad practices either. We'd need to know how many people are hurt as a result of officers operating electronic devices while driving and compare that to how many people would be hurt if officers had to use the radio or pull over every time they needed to use electronic devices.

Regardless, there was no legal basis for criminal charges in this incident.

If the government agreed to send oil companies a check for $10 for every barrel of oil produced, we'd all agree that that's a subsidy, right?

If the government instead says, "We'll credit your tax bill $10 for every barrel of oil you produce, reducing the amount on the tax check you send us", it's THE SAME DAMNED THING.

Oh and calling tax write-offs that oil companies take over employee benefits and such a "subsidy", when every other type of company can use those same write-offs is being disingenuous.

No one is calling those tax write-offs available to all businesses subsidies. The subsidies are the tax write-offs available ONLY to oil production companies. One example is the ability to write off the "declining value" of oil wells.

So, if you're an oil company, you spend $20 billion looking for oil reserves, and deduct those expenses. Then, you find a reserve, worth say, $100 billion. Then, you spend $20 billion getting that oil out of the ground, and deduct those expenses, and then you sell the oil for $100 billion. This is all the normal way a business would run. For example, someone might spend $20 million researching a new product, $20 million making the products, and then sell the products for $100 million, making $60 million in profits they are taxed on.

But on top of the normal deductions for ACTUAL COSTS, the oil companies ALSO deduct the "declining value of the wells". You know, since the oil in the ground was worth $100 billion, as they pump the oil out of the ground and the "value" of the oil in the ground declines, THEY DEDUCT THE DECLINING VALUE OF THE WELLS TOO!

As an airline pilot, you've (well, your union, on your behalf) negotiated a contract with the airline where your pay is based on getting the plane where it needs to go, and you are paid for all activities necessary to accomplish the task for which you are paid for.

Also known as, AIRLINE PILOTS ARE NOT HOURLY EMPLOYEES.

I am sure that, once you add up all the time you spend on all of your job-related activities, your wage + time and a half for hours over 40 per week, greatly exceeds the minimum wage.

Just like every other salaried employee who doesn't make any more money when it's crunch time and you have to pull 10-12 hour days to get shit done. It's called a job description, and being paid for the job (get plane from A to B) instead of the time (you were in airports/planes from 9 AM to 8 PM.)

If you don't like the terms of your contract, either renegotiate it so you are paid by the hour instead of by the trip (or flight hour), or work somewhere else. I hear Apple stores are hiring.

Note that Apple stores probably don't have benefits like medical, dental, or free flights on any domestic carrier on a space-available basis, and your hourly wage will plummet vs. your flight-hour wage, but at least you'll get a slight increase on your paycheck if customs takes a little longer to clear!

Just because a government is democratically elected doesn't mean it's a democracy. History is full of democratically elected governments that then turn into totalitarian regimes.

If Obama woke up tomorrow and ordered that all Tea Party members be arrested, I would expect our military to essentially remove him from office - in the immediate case by ignoring him, and in the longer case by Congress impeaching him and removing him from office - which would still require the cooperation of the military (they'd have to decide to listen to Congress and not the President.)

In Egypt, there isn't really a constitutional mechanism to get rid of a leader who, while democratically elected, isn't fulfilling his responsibilities as a democratic leader, so the best thing they have is the Army takes care of it.

So while this may technically be a coup in that the elected leader is being removed from office through a non-elective means, it's not necessarily undemocratic, if you believe the elected leader is abusing the freedoms of the people and the coup is to create the opportunity for someone who does respect the rights of the people to be elected.

Just because the questions are assigned those values doesn't mean that the final result is the sum of the points. For example, somewhere here someone linked to a test where the total possible points was 110. So it's pretty obvious that final test score is NOT just the sum of the points earned on the questions, since no one gets a score higher than 100.

You don't set your price based on what it costs you to make/provide something. You set your price to maximize profits.

So it doesn't matter that eBooks are cheaper to make/distribute than hard copies. What matters is whether people are willing to pay the same price for an eBook as they are for a hard copy. eBooks are arguably better than hard copy books, so it stands to reason people will pay at least as much, if not more, for them.

Now, in a free market, you would expect a competitor to enter the market at lower pricing - but books are copywritten, so it's not exactly a free market. Even then, the justice department is examining whether competitors in the market illegally colluded to force the agency model on eBook retailers.

The author makes the ASSUMPTION that the score of the test must be the sum of the value of the questions answered correctly. There is no basis for that assumption. The fact that certain values are not present, and the values 34, 33 and 32 are not present, are likely by design (i.e. don't make people feel like they just missed passing.)

All the author has shown is that India is apparently doing a very poor job teaching critical thinking skills (as evidenced by the author's inability to exercise critical thinking skills.)

That's because when most people suggest a flat tax, they only mean replacing the income tax with a flat tax and not including the payroll tax. A flat tax PLUS a payroll tax is tremendously unfair to the poor.

If your flat tax replaces both the federal income and federal payroll tax, and applies to all income, and maybe has an exemption for the first $X of income per adult, then you have an actual fair tax.

The Republicans love the rich, that's why they try to make it easier to become rich.

Except that's not true. Republicans make it easier to *STAY* rich. They make it quite difficult to become rich, because if you're not already rich, you have to pay the federal government 43% of your income in taxes on the way to becoming rich, while the people who are already rich pay 15%.

If Republicans really wanted to make it easier to become rich, they would replace the income and payroll taxes with a flat 25% tax on all income. Maybe let everyone have their first $10k tax free.